Rohto Ironman 70.3 California Race Report

Rohto Ironman 70.3 California
Oceanside, CA, 4/2/2011

HERE WE GO!!! My first 70.3 finally came and went with success, meaning I finished.

The night before the race, I was hanging out with my friends that we were staying with in San Diego, and some of their friends. We all shared dinner that night (some delicious raviolis), and then hung around a campfire that night, drinking (water for me) and playing games. It was a little uncomfortable for me, because in my head I was juggling trying to go to bed early and get the rest I would need for the race the next morning, and hanging out with these people who were so gracious to us in letting us stay with them. But I was able to get to bed by 10pm. Hardly early enough, but earlier than my body is use to, so it's okay? In my mind, yes.

Waking up at 4:30am the next morning, I thought, would be a piece of cake. My thought was that because we were only out there for a few days, that our body clocks would still be set for EST. So waking up at 4:30am PST (7:30am EST) would be alright. It turned out, that waking up at 4:30am PST felt like waking up at 4:30am EST; miserable! Between 4:30 and 5:00am, we (Laura and I), got dressed, packed a few things into Dave's car, and prepared a small breakfast of bananas and oranges. Of which I could not eat. I know I 100% should eat food before a race, but my stomach doesn't agree with that. But I had a plan, and we left the house at 5:00am.

Transition opened up at 4:45am and closed at 6:30am. Because we had gone to Oceanside a few days before to check-in, I was fairly confident that by leaving at 5:00am, we would be able to get to the site location with plenty of time to set-up my transition area, have a small breakfast, and warm-up a bit for the race. We got to one of the parking lots in plenty of time, 5:40-5:45am, unpacked all my gear, and started walking down to the transition area. There was a shuttle bus running people back and forth to transition, and we contemplated having Laura take the shuttle, and I could ride my bike down, but we decided to make the walk. One, because we didn't think it was that far away and two, we saw several other athletes already walking down, so we thought we still had plenty of time. The walk ended up being quite a distance, and took us a lot longer than we anticipated. Once we got down to the transition entrance, there were volunteers separating the athletes from the spectators, because only athletes are allowed in transition. At this point, I told Laura to wait right there, that I was going to go set-up my transition area and then head back out to grab my breakfast and warm-up. I get to my transition spot, drop my things off, went over to the body-markers, then started laying out my things when I hear a megaphone inside transition, "Everyone start heading down to the wave corrals, the transition is closing." I started freaking out. I hadn't eaten breakfast, I hadn't warmed up in the least bit, and I hadn't been able to see Laura since I came into transition. She was probably just as freaked. I squeezed a GU into my mouth to at least have something in me before the start of the race.

The race itself, so far, was very organized. By far the most organized race I have done. The check-in itself, which usually takes 30 seconds of me going up to a fold-up table and telling a person there my name and them giving me a packet with my race number, took 15 minutes of an organized walk-through of an auditorium picking up things from different tables. Heading to the swim, I just follow the flow of wet suit cladded  people, and then I hear a gun shot. My throat dropped, because I knew that was the start of the elites wave, and I knew that my wave started 19 minutes after theirs, and it hit me that this was it. I head through the corrals or colored swim caps, towards the group of purple, which signified my wave. I was wave #7 out of 16 or 17. All the corrals were along the edge of the water, so we could all see the action that was playing out at the start of the swim. In an attempt to calm my nerves, I didn't watch the swimmers at all, I just looked around at the spectators and the volunteers and thought about what it would be like to be watching this right now or working it. It worked for awhile until they called my swim wave, and we started heading down to the water. You can see I was getting pretty nervous in the video below (I was rubbing my eyelids). So we walk down the boat ramp, dive into the water, and swim the 25 yards across the bay to the start buoys.

I was afraid the water would be way too chilly, because they said it was going to be 55-60°F, but it actually wasn't bad at all. I wore 2 swim caps, my purple one for the race, and another one underneath it. I wasn't uncomfortable at all with the water temperature, and felt like I would be okay swimming the 1.2 miles. The swim was an in-water start, meaning we had to tread water for the few minutes until our gun went off. It sounds tiring, but between the buoyancy of the wet suits, and the extra density of salt water, I just bobbed in the water like one of the buoys! My main thought going into the swim, was to start real slowwww. Because this was my first 70.3, and longest straight swim to date, I didn't know how it would affect me later on in the race. So I planned on swimming a lot slower than I could, and saving my energy for the bike and the run. Swimming started out great, the bay was real calm, and there were no turns in the first few minutes which usually causes clusters. I started in the back of my wave, took off like a turtle at the start of the gun, and just rhythm-ed my way along the buoys. I was very surprised to pass people in the wave before me in the first few minutes, and I just felt bad for them because I knew they were in for a much longer day than I was. The water in the bay was very calm, it was great. Then came the turn buoy that meant I would be swimming out of the bay and straight out into the ocean. The sea swells came rolling in, I started getting pretty sea sick, and all I could see when I was siting was buoy after buoy after buoy with no end in site. My thoughts in the next few moments were:

"Oh man this is awful, I feel like I'm going to throw up that GU."

"I guess throwing up in the ocean would be okay, it would all get washed off me pretty quick."

"Ew, then some poor guy behind me will be swimming through my puke."

"I wonder if I have ever swam through someone else's puke?"

"Probably, just keep swimming." 

After making all the necessary turns, coming back into the bay was great. I could hear the loudspeaker, I could see the boat ramp, and I knew I was almost done. Getting out of the water was another new thing for me, because there was a line of people in wet suits who started grabbing at me as I was running up the ramp! I was so confused at what was going on, until I realized that my wet suit was starting to come off. They were pulling down the zipper of our wet suits, and helping us take them off, it was cool, but I didn't need the help. I took off my goggles, put it in my swim caps, and was about to take off my sleeve of my wet suit (leaving my goggles and swim cap in the sleeve) when I noticed my goggles weren't in my cap anymore. I had dropped them in the water coming up the ramp. Looking around for them real quick was useless. The water was waist-high coming up the ramp where I dropped them, and the water was dark, and there were people rushing up the ramp. It was like looking for an acorn amongst a stampede of rubber wildebeests. So I gave up and ran into transition. Swim time for the 1.2 miles = 44:01.

Transition 1 started with a run up the entire side of transition. There were about almost 3,000 athletes, so it was a fairly long run. With that many people in the race, it was very important for me (in the little time I had before the race), to find something I could site with coming into transition to tell me where my stuff was. If I have more time before a race, I typically will simulate the run out of the water into transition, and count my steps until my row. I didn't have that luxury today, but I was able to notice that my stuff was parked right next to one of those big traveling dumpsters, perfect! So I find the dumpster, take off my wet suit, put on my socks (not getting blisters on this long of a race!), grab some food to put in my pockets (doing this all in no absolute rush either), and start heading out of transition with my bike.

I was especially excited about this bike leg because I had bought my first tri bike a few months before (see picture below). I hadn't been able to ride it much, mostly because the weather in New England in the winter makes it fairly difficult to do fun training. (See Off-season Training in New England). I was excited to see what I could do. The first half of the race went great. I was following my nutrition plan of having a GU every 30 minutes, drinking a few sips of gatorade frequently, and eating pretzels/saltines (bad idea on the saltines) every 20 minutes. I was cruising along, not worrying about people that are flying by me, and just concentrating on my cadence. I started out real slow the first few miles, which typically happens to me. Probably because I have trouble getting rid of the sea legs. But then once I got a few miles out, I was able to get into a good rhythm and was right around averaging 20mph for the first 25 miles. My goal for the ride was to break 3 hrs, and at the 28 mile mark, I was at 1 hr and 24 mins, right on mark. Almost immediately after checking that time, I look up (and up and up and up) and see this monster of a hill (mountain!). It was still a good distance away, but I could see large groups of people all together. You usually don't see large groups of people together in a race like this, unless they are cheating and drafting off each other, or they are going super slow because of a steep incline. Getting to the start of that climb was like hitting a brick wall. The gradient increased almost immediately, and it was a struggle for a few seconds until I was able to get my gears all the way down. I just put my head down, and cranked away up the climb. I feel I am a pretty decent climber if I want to be, so although it wasn't the most difficult part of the race for me, it's still less fun than cruising downhill or over flat roads. There were many people who were off their bikes, walking them up, and even several that ended up going so slow that they just tipped over on their bikes. I'm not sure how long it took my to climb, but it was around 7-8 mins I think, and was way less than a mile climb. It seems short, but it sure didn't feel like it! The next 20ish miles had several more of these steep climbs, and also had a major headwind that we had to deal with. It was so strong, that on some of the downhill decents, I felt like I had to pedal or I would be pushed back up! The whole second half of the ride was very difficult for me. I wasn't struggling per say, but my time wasn't what I was expecting. After that half-way point, I felt like my legs couldn't produce the kind of power they were producing in the first 28 miles. The ride was through commercial areas for the first and last few miles, but was mostly through different areas of Camp Pendleton Marine Base. It was very cool because there were a lot of marines out on the course cheering us all on; there were some that were blocking the road and directing traffic for us; and there were others that were doing drills and different exercises in the fields as we passed. Bike time for the 56 miles = 3:16:44.

Coming off the bike, I was feeling tired, but not drained, and I felt confident of completing this race. The transition was easy, but I knew I was going to be awhile on the run, so I took my time again. Found the dumpster, changed my shoes, threw out my trash from the bike, and then headed out for the final leg.

The start of the run was really cool for me. As I left the transition, the announcer was getting all excited, and I could see Mirinda Carfrae coming down the road in the opposite direction. Mirinda is a pro who ended up winning the women's race, and I was able to see her finish the run with several girls right behind her. She was flying! The announcer was saying how she was 4.5 minutes back at the start of the run, and how she was still 30 seconds behind 1st place with 1 mile to go, and obviously she crushed that last mile to win by 10 seconds. That excitement was a huge boost, and helped me shake out my biking legs, until the end of the first mile...

The sign for mile 1 came up, and then that signaled my legs to die. I had run the Hyannis Half-Marathon a few weeks prior, and knew how difficult it was going to be for me to run this distance after enduring everything else before. But I didn't fly out all that way, spend all that money for nothing. I just focused all my thoughts on the small picture. I looked at buildings coming up, or looked at people playing volleyball on the beach, or ran towards overhead lights. Anything small to get me over this distance would be great. The run was an out-and-back half-marathon along the Oceanside beach for awhile, and then taking a few turns to run up and down a residential street. They said the run was "flat" and for the most part it was. There was just a few gradual hills that seemed like huge steep mountains with how my legs felt. I walked at every water station, drinking water or coke, eating an orange slice, and putting a wet sponge on the back of my neck to cool me off. I walked up these gradual hills. I ran what I could in between. Mile after mile came and went, I made the turnaround and knew I was going to be slower than I wanted, but at this point, I was very proud of myself for my mental state. Although I was walking, it was more so that I would be able to finish at the finish line rather than at a medical tent than being mentally weak. I felt strong mentally, and I was happy for that. 

Turning that last corner, coming down the road with all the screaming people (and cowbells), and running through that finishing chute was amazing, and I couldn't help but think about doing the next one. Even though I was on the ground right after, trying to shove a cookie down my throat so I wouldn't pass out. I couldn't talk for a few minutes, and I felt like I was going to collapse if I didn't find a seat somewhere, but I held onto that finishing medal with great pride. Run time for the 13.1 miles = 2:32:41.

Overall, it was a great experience for me. Now many days later, I feel like so much stronger than I did before the race. I feel like any distance under 70.3 will be a breeze, and that's a great feeling. I learned that I really need to get to races earlier, so I have plenty of time to warm-up and get ready, and not have to worry about anything; I learned that I need to run A LOT MORE than I am doing now; and I learned that I need to learn about riding into the wind (if that is possible). After it is all said and done, I would definitely do this race again, if it were all free for me next time.

Swim: 1.2 miles, 44:01, 2:17 min/100yd avg

T1: 4:20

Bike: 56 miles, 3:16:44, 17.1 mph avg

T2: 3:20

Run: 13.1 miles, 2:32:41, 11:40 min/mile avg

Total: 70.3 miles, 6:41:06